A TSA Scanner in Every Neighborhood

[TheRightsWriter.com]

by Ben Johnson

The American people are outraged over the TSA’s new guidelines for airport security. Commentators have jokingly summarized travelers’ options as: porn machine or groping? However, the same body-baring technology may be rolling around their neighborhoods at this time, covertly scanning them on the sidewalks or within the sanctuary of their homes, all without a warrant.

Forbes reported in August about Z Backscatter Vans (ZBVs), vehicles that look like normal vans but are equipped with backscatter X-ray scanners attached. They can scan a vehicle in 15 seconds and X-ray anything within a 1,500 foot radius. A Massachusetts-based company has sold more than 500 of these vehicles to a variety of domestic, foreign, and international governments; law enforcement agencies; and private individuals. The use of these vans is unreported, largely unregulated, and all-but-impossible for innocent victims to detect.

American Science & Engineering (AS&E) has attempted to distinguish between ZBVs and the pornographic images produced by airport scanners, saying images produced by the vans are less revealing. But the company’s vice president of marketing, Joe Reiss, admitted the beams from these roving X-ray machines “to a large degree will penetrate clothing.” They can also see through ”lightly constructed” buildings. Although TSA officials pretend their airport scanners do not save images, Reiss makes no pretense about the backscatter vans. “Sometimes customers need to save images for evidentiary reasons,” Reiss stated. “We do what our customers need.”

The idea of roving X-ray machines peeping through neighborhoods would be mildly less disturbing if we had a greater idea of who their customers were. They are apparently available to anyone who can pay the $729,000 price tag.

AS&E states the Department of Defense has purchased most of the units to scan for bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others have been sold to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the TSA. Other clients include unnamed national, international, or local law enforcement officials. (The NYPD acknowledges it does “utilize this technology” but declines to state when it is used “due to confidentiality concerns.”)

Other AS&E clients are more...vague. Records indicate sales to an “international government agency,” a “new African customer,” a “European Union (EU) and an Asia Pacific (APAC) client,” and a “Middle Eastern customer.”

Reports indicate government authorities are using the technology on a wide range of innocents. Arizona State University physics professor Peter Rez said one of his students told him about using a ZBV van at the United Nations in Turtle Bay. “It was a secondary screening mechanism for trucks going into a loading dock, but it was on a public street, and they were just scanning people and nobody was being told this was going on.”

Health concerns are also a factor. According to the U.S. military, these vans emit 0.01 millirems of radiation per exposure. However, if a pregnant woman with a young child unwittingly stood by a ZBV, they could be exposed to an impermissibly high level of radiation.

Since ZBVs are all-but undetectable, it will be nearly impossible for citizens to know when governments (or private citizens) are violating their liberties or endangering their health. By definition, these vans can, and apparently do, scan large numbers of people beside those for whom law enforcement have a warrant.

One of the young, outspoken conservative voices in the House of Representatives has raised his voice about this infringement of liberties. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said: “In a hostage situation you want to be able to peer into the house -- I buy that. But in the hands of a private individual? That scares the living daylights out of me.”

There again, should Americans should breathe easier knowing the U.S. government -- or foreign governments, foreign intelligence agencies, or the United Nations -- may have a van irradiating the cul-de-sac and taking nude photos of themselves, their children, and their mothers? That government employees may be storing those images in perpetuity?

This author suggested in August that Darrell Issa should investigate the warrantless use of backscatter X-rays on American streets as a possible violation of the Fourth Amendment. So far, Ron Paul has introduced the American Traveler Dignity Act, which would allow citizens to prosecute airport scanners. He currently has no fewer than two cosponsors.

That must be the beginning of a roll-back of this administration’s intrusion into our private lives. The he DHS (Department of Hopeless Seculation) has issued a report declaring those who hold to what Janet Napolitano defines as a “rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” That report makes these groups targets for government surveillance. Planned Parenthood is instructing the FBI on how to spy on pro-lifers. Investigators may legally attach a GPS to your vehicle to track you remotely. And Obama’s stimulus spent $50,000 to put microchips in recycling bins in Dayton, Ohio.

ZBVs may have a role to play in our national security. A heroic conservative legislator should craft guidelines to assure our constitutional liberties are not violated in the process.

Original article.​

 

[TheRightsWriter.com]

Skin Cancer, Courtesy of the TSA

by Ben Johnson
The dangers of the new airport scanners installed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) go beyond the awkward, self-conscious feeling of having a stranger take an X-ray of your nude body. According to a growing number of scientists, the radiation these scanners emit will infect a number of people each year with skin cancer.

The TSA has downplayed all such concerns, insisting the risk of exposure via the backscatter X-ray scanners -- which operate through ionizing radiation -- is ”tiny” and ”miniscule.” But not all scientists agree.

Arizona State University physics professor Peter Rez and health physics professor Ken Mossman evaluated the technology in the November 9 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Radiation Protection and Dosimetry.

Rez told CNN, “I came to the conclusion that although low, the dose was higher than they said.” He estimated the TSA understated the amount of radiation by a factor of five to ten. (TSA claims the scanners expose individuals to the equivalent of two minutes in flight; Rez says it’s more like 10-20 minutes.) And there’s more:

The TSA uses a method called effective dose, which averages the radiation throughout the entire body, Rez said.

He explained that the method is misleading because the skin absorbs almost all of the radiation.

The odds of contracting fatal skin cancer from just one trip through a backscatter machine, Rez said, are one in 30 million.

The chances of dying in a terrorist attack, Rez said, are also one in 30 million.

“The probability is about the same as the thing you are trying to prevent,” Rez said.

If Rez’s statistics are correct, they guarantee a number of people will contract skin cancer each year from the new scanners.

Currently, 700 million people fly each year, and 100 million of them are Americans. Roughly half of those people will be scanned by a backscatter X-ray machine.

According to Rez, that means at least one to two American citizens each year will get cancer courtesy of the U.S. government.

It would also mean another 10-12 foreigners will be inflicted with cancer by Uncle Sam.

Rez is far from the only scientist concerned about the possibility. “[TSA agents] say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays,” said Dr. Michael Love. Love oversees Johns Hopskins University’s X-ray lab in the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry.

The controversy is not new. In April, four science or medical faculty at the University of California-San Francisco wrote a letter to the Science Czar detailing their concerns. The Food and Drug Administration and Department of Homeland Security replied six months later with an assurance that all was well. One of the UCSF professors, Dr. Marc Shuman, says the government’s analysis is ”seriously flawed.” The four are in the process of writing a response to DHS.

These scientists dealt only with standard passengers who go through the scanners a few times a year. The hazards for TSA screeners and pilots, who go through or perform many more scans, are much higher. And their data assume all the machines perform normally. Rez believes airport scanners are likely to malfunction because of their extensive use.

Many airline pilots -- who are subjected to a greater amount of radiation because of their profession -- have already decided to opt out. Captain David Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, encouraged his rank-and-file to skip the extra dose of radiation and opt for the pat-down feel-up. “No pilot at American Airlines should subject themselves to the needless privacy invasion and potential health risks caused by the body scanner,” he wrote in a letter to his members. “Politely decline exposure and request alternative screening,” even if “the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience.”

The increased risk of cancer is not only perilous but needless. The TSA has an equally effective (read: invasive) machine, known as the millimeter wave, which uses radio frequencies to inspect passengers. It has no known health effects. Yet only about half of the machines in airports are millimeter waves.

Maurine Fanguy of the TSA’s Office of Security Technology said the agency has refrained from deploying the non-carcinogenic technology exclusively because it wishes “to have more than one vendor available in any one class of product. That allows us to get more competitive pricing, and it makes sure that we don’t cut off one avenue of technology that would potentially not allow us to take advantage of innovation later.”

In other words, the government is boosting the public’s risk of cancer because it wants to save money. The first and only thrifty instinct the government has shown requires cutting corners on public safety.

Interestingly, the four UCSF professors addressed their letter of concern to Science Czar John Holdren. This author was the first writer to expose John Holdren’s radicalism, especially his support for population control in his 1977 book Ecoscience. He and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote, “The neo-Malthusian view proposes...population limitation and redistribution of wealth.” They concluded, “On these points, we find ourselves firmly in the neo-Malthusian camp.” In their view, “compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing constitution.” (Emphasis added.)

The term “neo-Malthusian” denotes those followers of Thomas Malthus, a 19th century British economist who believed overpopulation was the greatest problem facing mankind. In ”An Essay on the Principle of Population” Malthus wrote, “All the children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons.” He added his followers should “court the return of the plague.”

Cancer is not the only side effect of excess radiation. Sterility is another. According to the New York State Department of Health, “In men, a single dose of 15 rem can cause temporary sterility, and a single dose between 400 and 500 rem can cause permanent sterility. In women, a total dose of 400 rem received over two or three exposures has been known to cause permanent sterility.” Ordinary exposure, according to the TSA, would provide no problem. They claim, “Scanned passengers may absorb from 0.1 to 5 microsieverts of radiation.”

The TSA began deploying the backscatter technology in 2007, under the Bush administration. But the Obama administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars purchasing hundreds more. And an administration not especially obsessed with security has issued guidelines before the busiest travel season of the year requiring all travelers to undergo a scan or submit to a public fondling.

Whatever its motives, the consequences could well be deadly.

Original article.​

 

[KCIndy]

Anyone got $729,000?

Let's buy one of these puppies and start spying on the government that's spying on us!